Music

Soviet-Era Banned Western Music Pressed onto X-Rays

June 30, 2014

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During the 1950s, when vinyl was scare and before tape recorders were available, people in the Soviet Union would take banned bootlegged jazz and rock records and press them onto salvaged x-rays cut into discs. "They would cut the X-ray into a crude circle with manicure scissors and use a cigarette to burn a hole," says author Anya von Bremzen. "You’d have Elvis on the lungs, Duke Ellington on Aunt Masha’s brain scan — forbidden Western music captured on the interiors of Soviet citizens."